Evan Narcisse

With Skyrim and Minecraft both out on this Friday, [Editor's note: As folks have said in comments, Minecraft's out next week. My bad.] the next two weeks are already shaping up to be a David-vs.-Goliath showdown. But, as indie as Mojang's hit sandbox construction game is, there's something even indier than Minecraft coming out on the same day.

Say hello to Nitronic Rush. This student-built game looks like it's melding the checkpoint-based structure of old-school driving games like San Francisco Rush and Crazy Taxi with parkour-infused level design, dousing it all in Rez and/or Tron vector-riffic lushness . Call it free racing, maybe? I call it gorgeous. The racer comes an 11-person dev team at DigiPen Institute of Technology, which has also turned out Narbacular Drop, the game built by Kim Swift and colleagues that laid the seeds for Portal. Nitronic Rush is a free download so you won't even need spare cash. Just carve out some spare time this weekend (a dicey proposition, I know) to support some great student work.